


blue skies from pain

by salamoonder



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Homesickness, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25800133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salamoonder/pseuds/salamoonder
Summary: Beau overcomes her own awkwardness enough to try and help Caduceus out.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 18
Kudos: 102





	blue skies from pain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stardreamertwo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardreamertwo/gifts).



> The mildest of spoilers for 105. Set in a hypothetical future. Only warnings are for canon typical swearing from Beau.
> 
> :screams: can I please get a hug for Cad. Can I PLEASE get a hug for Cad.
> 
> Thanks to the lovely Star for inspiring this :3

Beau blinks sleepily awake, trying not to wince at the soreness of the still-healing burns on her arms as she pushes herself up. She’s sure she heard someone get up (maybe leave the dome?) but it’s dark and she can’t see; so she just sits and blinks harder, trying to listen. There’s something disconcerting in the movements--this isn’t someone waking up to roll over or anything. There’s a weird noise she can’t quite identify, a sort of labored breathing, then rustling. Shifting. She gets up, slow, noiseless, and listens. There are definitely footsteps heading away from the dome. Beau follows, trying to be as stealthy as she can.

She’s grateful they’re on the beach and not in the forest; even in the almost full dark, she’s only stepping into soft sand with no fear of running straight into a tree trunk. Judging by the speed of the footsteps, whoever she’s following is none too concerned with stumbling either. Her eyes start to adjust, and the outline comes into focus a little; taller than Yasha. Too tall to be anyone but Caduceus.

He comes right to the edge of the waves, where the sand turns damp, and then falls to his knees, making Beau only a little taller than him. It takes her another few seconds to process this before she realizes that the weird, suppressed panting she had been hearing is actually stifled sobs, so tight and quieted that they sound painful. Beau’s own chest aches in sympathy.

She hovers there for a second a good ten feet away from him, trying to decide whether it would be more or less awkward to leave him to it. Eventually the part of her that’s a little freaked out by the shattering of Caduceus’s calm demeanor wins out, and she clears her throat a little.

Caduceus doesn’t move, but the sobs hitch for a moment in his throat.

“Oh h-hey Beau. Was wondering if you were gonna, uh. Uhm.” He trails off there, evidently even more scattered than usual.

“Are you...are you okay, man?” Beau takes a couple steps closer, her face burning with retroactive shame at the possibility of having seen him like this, having him realize she was there, and then going back to sleep without saying anything.

“I’m.” There’s a struggly moment, and then, “It’s nothing I can’t handle. So yes, I suppose. Yes. Yes I’m okay.”

“Uh, bull fucking shit?”

Caduceus almost snorts. “Please...please go back to sleep. I promise you I’m fine.”

“I thought your whole schtick was honesty,” says Beau, meaning to say it with an edge, but it comes out a little softer than intended. She closes the distance between them and crouches so she can look up at his face. His shoulders are shaking, and his eyes are startlingly red against the bright pink of his irises. “Geez, dude.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be very good at being honest right now,” says Caduceus, and reaches up to tug at one of the spirals in his ears.

“Hey, I do that too,” says Beau. “The little. Yeah, turning it in circles. When I’m nervous.” She reaches up to touch the jade spiral in her own ear and tries to give him a grin, but when their eyes meet she sees a million different feelings and meanings and stories all bridged together, like he’s reading her mind, and he hangs his head, half choking on tears.

“Oh, don’t-fuck, man, don’t do that. That sounds painful.”

“Don’t do--what?”

“You’re...literally choking yourself. It’s kind of disturbing. You sound like you’re destroying your chest.”

“Is there--another way to do this?”

Beau scoffs in spite of herself. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let’s. Hm.” She sits down, looking up to the moon for answers--but it’s still hidden behind a cloud. She reaches up to the jade again, and a very distinct and unpleasant memory of Kamordah washes over her. “Okay.”

She falls backwards into the sand, and flails for a second with the hand that’s not on the jade till she catches Caduceus in the side and pulls him down with her, and then she volunteers up the only piece of information about her teenage years that she hasn’t shared out of sheer necessity or well meaning questions that make her feel as though she’s being flayed raw.

“When I was a kid I used to have this spot that I’d go to away from the house, out in the vineyards? There was this massive tangle of dead grapevines in one of the smaller sections that just never got cleared for some reason, and, like. You could part the vines a little bit and go inside it, and it was basically just a huge dome of branches and vines and weeds and shit, but you couldn’t really see in from the outside. I would go there if I needed to cry.” She chuckles. “Pretty fuckin sad, huh. If you think about it. But you kinda need that, dude. Just a place where you’re not gonna be interrupted or found out, y’know?”

“I don’t--I didn’t have--I always just--”

“Holy fuck please breathe.” Beau takes a breath herself. “Sorry. It’s--look, okay, I have no idea what’s going on? But I promise I’m not gonna judge you or make you talk or anything. It’s cool.”

There’s a few seconds of sniffly silence, and then, “Beau?”

“Uhuh?”

“Could I have a hug?”

“Yeah.” Beau brightens a little, and rolls up out of the sand, catching him as he wraps his arms around her tight enough to push air from her lungs. “ _Ow._ Sure.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, man, it’s cool, I told you.”

For a moment, Caduceus resembles nothing more than Frumpkin trying to hold back a sneeze, and then she pats his shoulder absently and he entirely collapses into her, shaking and hiccuping and too exhausted to repress himself any further.

“Okay. Hey, you’re good. Hey. Hey. It’s...it’s okay.” It’s been a while since she’s done this. Caleb...Caleb is easier to deal with. They get each other. Beau’s not as great with the whole feelings mess, and every word coming out of her mouth feels like a mistake. She lets go of Caduceus with one hand, reaching for her belt, and blindly pulls her old sash out of a pouch. “Doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of point in drying your eyes _right_ now, but, uh…” she presses the sash into his hand. “When you need it?”

He nods against her shoulder, takes an enormous shaky breath, and manages to choke out “I miss my siblings,” before lapsing back into tears.

Beau starts rubbing his back, feeling vaguely like that’s a thing that people do for crying people, and about a half dozen things click into place in her mind. Caduceus absently gazing back towards land on the Balleater, looking vaguely seasick. Caduceus insisting on cooking for them. Caduceus checking and double checking and triple checking his pack for lost items, his ears getting progressively flatter against his head. She remembers meeting Calliope back at the Menagerie and instantly recognizing the drive in her eyes; a ferocity, a refusal to be ignored that is largely absent in Caduceus. An attitude that is clearly reflected in herself. Jade spirals. Home.

“Yeah, I...yeah. I don’t really feel like I can say I know my brother well enough to miss him, but. Y’know. I get it.” At least, she hopes she gets it. She thinks about TJ, and then she thinks about Tori, and then she decides maybe it would be better to think about Caduceus.

“I’m sorry,” says Cad, pulling away, and he buries his entire face in her sash for a moment, which almost makes her laugh.

“Caduceus. Stop apologizing. You’re, like...way too chill to not be having six minor breakdowns a week. You don’t have to _hide_ that from us. I don’t know who made you think you did, but it’s not true.”

“My problems aren’t--I don’t have problems. Compared to this whole-”

“Okay, stop. One, mildly insulting. Two, this doesn’t exactly look like not a problem, dude. Three. You deserve exactly the same kind of support that we gave Veth when we got her body back and Fjord when he lost all his cool shit and Caleb when we saw his asshole teacher. Okay? You’ve seen me yell at Caleb. I am totally cool with yelling at you if you pull some kind of ‘I don’t have problems my life is perfect’ bullshit. When I said we are all fucked, I meant we are all _fucked._ Got it?”

Caduceus frowns, finally emerging from her sash. “I don’t think that was entirely as reassuring as you meant it to be.”

Beau winces, trying to sift through her head for a softer way to say any of this. Instead what comes out of her mouth is, “heeeyyy, you’re not crying!”, immediately followed by an awkward thumbs up.

Caduceus _almost_ laughs, she’s pretty sure of it.

“Look, man. I’m not...great at the whole 'people' thing. I’m just trying to tell you we care about you.”

“Who says you’re not great at the whole 'people' thing?” Caduceus asks, frowning. His breathing has almost completely steadied; he’s wadding up a new corner of the sash to wipe away the last of the tears. Beau wonders absently if it’s harder or easier to hide when you have fur.

“Uhh. Everyone. Pretty much. I don’t know. I’m getting better.”

“You made me feel better,” he says quietly, and Beau has to stop herself from letting out a sigh of relief.

“Good. I’m glad.”

Neither of them say anything else, and neither of them make a move to go back to the dome, so they just sit there on the sand for a minute longer, staring into the dark without seeing anything, but without needing to.


End file.
